Science fast facts

If you add up the numbers 1-100 consecutively (1+2+3+4+5 etc) the total is 5050.

Hydrogen gas is the least dense substance in the world, at 0.08988 g/cc.

Hydrogen solid is the most dense substance in the world, at 70.6 g/cc.

Cold water weighs more than hot water.

According to Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, it is possible to go slower than light and faster than light, but it is impossible to go at the speed of light.

In July 1849, Hippolyte Fizeau became the first person to measure the speed of light on Earth.

All humans are 99.9% genetically identical and 98.4% of human genes are the same as the genes of a chimpanzee. The genetic similarity between a human and a cat is 90%, with a mouse 85%, a dog 84%, a cow 80%, a pumpkin 75%, a banana 60% and with a cabbage 57%.

You are 75% genetically related to a pumpkin! Pumpkin sculptor Ray Villafane.

A pipe 2 feet (60 cm) in diameter will allow 4 times more fluid to pass through it than a pipe 1 foot (30 cm) in diameter.

Helium is the second most abundant element in the Universe but it’s exceedingly rare on Earth. Helium used for industrial purposes is a byproduct of natural gas production. 75% is produced in the USA.

The chemical formula for Rubidium Bromide is RbBr, the only chemical formula palindrome.

Physicist Murray Gell-Mann named the sub-atomic particles known as quarks for a random line in James Joyce’s “Three quarks for Muster Mark.”

Carbonated water, with nothing else in it, can dissolve limestone, talc, and many other low-hardness minerals. Carbonated water, by the way, is the main ingredient in soda pop.

20.9% of the gas in the atmosphere is oxygen.

A cesium atom in an atomic clock beats over 9 billion times a second.

The 111th element is known as “unnilenilenium.”

Due to gravitational effects, you weigh slightly less when the moon is directly overhead.

Extremely high pressured water can easily cut through a steel beam.

Forensic scientists can determine a person’s sex, age, and race by examining a single strand of hair.

Sound travels through water 3 times faster than through air.

A square piece of dry paper cannot be folded in half more than 7 times.

If you could fold a piece of paper in half 50 times, its thickness will be 3/4 the distance from the Earth to the Sun (71 million miles).

Air becomes liquid at about minus 190 degrees Celsius.

Liquid air looks like water with a bluish tint.

The thin line of cloud that forms behind an aircraft at high altitudes is called a contrail.

Radio waves travel so much faster than sound waves that a broadcast voice can be heard sooner 18,000 km away than in the back of the room in which it originated.

Most of the air is about 78% nitrogen gas. Only 21% consists of oxygen. The remaining 1% consists of carbon dioxide, argon, neon, helium, krypton, hydrogen, xenon and ozone.

Argon is used to fill the space in most light bulbs. Neon is used in fluorescent signs. Fluorescent lights are filled with mercury gas.

Hydrogen gas is the least dense substance in the world.

A US ton is equivalent to 900 kg (2000 pounds). A British ton is 1008 kg (2240 pounds), called a gross ton.

Industrial hemp contains less than 1% of THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana.

Since space is essentially empty it cannot carry sound. Therefor there is no sound in space, at least not the sort of sound that we are used to.

Water expands by about 9% as it freezes.

The surface of hot water freezes faster than cold water but the rest of the water will remain liquid longer than in a cold sample.

The smallest transistor is 50-nanometres wide – roughly 1/2000 the width of a human hair.

A compass does not point to the geographical North or South Pole, but to the magnetic poles.

The double-helix structure of DNA was discovered in 1953 by James Watson and Francis Crick. The length of a single human DNA molecule, when extended, is 5’5″ (1.7 m).

In a desert, a mirage is caused when air near the ground is hotter than air higher up. As light from the sun passes from cooler to warmer air, it speeds up and is refracted upward, creating the image of water.

The typical bolt of lightning heats the atmosphere to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

An electric oven uses one kilowatt-hour of electricity in about 20 minutes, but one kilowatt-hour will power a TV for 3 hours, run a 100-watt bulb for 12 hours, and keep an electric clock ticking for 3 months.

Urea is found in human urine and dalmatian dogs and nowhere else.

If the chemical sodium is dropped into water it will immediately and violently explode.

The name for fungal remains found in coal is sclerotinite.

Parthenogenesis is the term used to describe the process by which certain animals are able to reproduce themselves in successive female generations without intervention of a male of the species. At least one species of lizard is known to do so.

The first fossilized specimen of Austalopithecus afarenisis was named Lucy after the palentologists’ favorite song, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, by the Beatles.

A type specimen is used in paleontology as the best example of that species. The type specimen for the human species is the skull of Edward Drinker Cope, an American paleontologist of the late 1800’s.

Human birth control pills work on gorillas.

A woman’s sense of smell is most sensitive during ovulation.

Cellophane is not made of plastic. It is made from a plant fiber, cellulose, which has been shredded and aged.

A cubic yard of air weighs about 2 pounds at sea level.

The infinity sign is called a lemniscate.

Rene Descartes came up with the theory of coordinate geometry by looking at a fly walk across a tiled ceiling.

The number Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.

Oceanography, the study of oceans, is a mixture of biology, physics, geology and chemistry.

In extremely rare instances, cosmic rays have sufficient energy to alter the states of circuit components in electronic integrated circuits, causing soft errors. Cosmic rays were suspected as a possible cause of an in-flight incident in 2008 where an Airbus A330 airliner of Qantas twice plunged hundreds of feet after an unexplained malfunction in its flight control system.